Olives @olives@qoto.org
Software Engineer. Psy / Tech / Sex Science Enthusiast. Controversial?
Free Expression. Human rights / Civil Liberties. Anime. Liberal.
Joined May 2023
Looks like Julie is carrying out a "public consultation", that is probably an important one to keep in mind throughout it.
While I generally don't dive into this, I saw a few bad faith remarks which are so outrageous that I feel compelled to respond. First off, when tal...
Olives
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🧵 The #FreeSoftware/#OpenSource status of #Matrix, #Element and other related projects is in serious trouble. The main company running the ecosystem, @element, will fork the main projects from their previous steward, the @matrix@mastodon.matrix Foundation, make AGPL-3.0 the new default license, and put a #CLA in front of it.
This is a common scheme called Rights-Ratched-Model as coined by @webmink. I see a number of upcoming changes that are bad for user freedom, interoperability and communities:
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@aebrockwell 1) I think the worst thing is when they believe the nonsense the machine puts out without thinking critically about it.
3) A lawyer got fined for making filings with a court which cited a bunch of non-existent cases. That excuse didn't fly with the judge.
The Lantern cartel is not to be confused with the "brand safety" cartel, although they're both problematic in their own ways.
There are many questions about freedom of expression, proportionality, due process, and so on here as well, particularly as these companies tend to be overly censorious and frivolous.
Also, some of the terms used here are extremely suspicious.
The anti-trust question though is one which keeps getting overlooked, and it's an important one.
While investigating other things, I discovered multiple tech companies engaging in very creepy and opaque cartel-like behavior with a program called "Lantern". They also appeared to be funding reports to justify it.
It's actually not unheard of for tech companies like these to attack their competitors, then to invoke some high minded "concern" like "safety" to try to deflect responsibility from that. In 2021, Google even tried to remove Element, which is practically akin to a web browser for the Matrix Network, from the app store.
There also appeared to be a company called "Thorn" (which is well-known for being fairly problematic) involved.
Apparently, the "brand safety" cartel even shut down a progressive media outlet.
Some points about censoring fictional content there (censorship is a bad idea):
1) It might fuel someone's persecution complex. The idea of a dangerous world where people are out to get them. Feeds anxiety, alienation. It's happened a fair bit. It doesn't actually do anything positive.
2) Someone might see someone as an idiot or crazy (that's not wrong, lol). In any case, it poisons the well as someone is not seen to be credible or competent in these matters at all.
3) It violates someone's free expression. People have these things called rights, that's important.
4) Bad people don't need it. They can still do bad things. Good people are who'd suffer.
5) It violates the Constitution. Multiple constitutions.
6) Punishing someone because they resemble someone unpleasant isn't good. Also, due process still applies, in any case...
7) Can be a coping mechanism.
I see the "age verification" language now (or that posted on social media), it doesn't seem to cover porn containing sites per se (although, maybe ...
Olives
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Sometimes, I wonder if an artist trying to accentuate particular parts of the body (i.e. the realism of the drawing style or interesting traits) doesn't rub a few people the wrong way.
It's not really surprising, that someone might do that for parts someone (though, maybe not everybody) might be able to get more out of (or some other reason to like that style, such as aesthetics)...
Anecdotally, with non-sexual art, I'd say there's been a bit more censorship along those lines (not really a good thing)... Then again, there's not much data to go on about censorship there.
While I generally don't dive into this, I saw a few bad faith remarks which are so outrageous that I feel compelled to respond. First off, when tal...
@ophiocephalic To quote myself: "I still wouldn't want to burn down the Internet / sites, because of unwanted bad actors"
https://qoto.org/@olives/111440906410871858
I think that just because a bad actor might misuse a service, it isn't proportionate to violate the rights of the other people on the service. Content scanning (or this great big centralized apparatus) is kind of like that.
It is also kind of concerning that you have these people from FB and what-not who have little to do with the fedi parachuting themselves in to tell people what to do.
@ophiocephalic The real question, and the one I think everyone should be asking is: Why do we let them get away with this?
@ophiocephalic Have you also noticed how he sits there, waits until one particular site appears to have moderation issues (and gets restricted by plenty), then "happens to do a scan" and really tries to sell that as a "fedi issue"? He could have done this at *any time* before or after.
What's reported is also not neutrally presented (i.e. all the data points) but to advance his arguments. Normally, you'd expect something like in this month, in that month, in so and so month.
@ophiocephalic David is a, pretty clear racist (he was far happier to offer the benefit of the doubt to apparent U.S.-based instances), who appears to have done that deliberately to shill his preferred scanning solution.
He also tried to make it out as if instances weren't removing "obvious child abuse", then started talking about dubious things like "pictures of the room" in the same breath (basically, he wants to get the point across that the only way to "deal with the problem" is to rely on an opaque filter list curated by a conservative NGO who promises to play nice). His arguments are self-serving. There is a lot wrong with him, honestly, and I'm not gonna go into all of it here. More recently, they've stopped relying on the "report", for talking about historic events on the fedi, and relied more on "hearsay".
https://qoto.org/@olives/111191543236620885 He also, frequently, runs into some of the same problems I describe here. But, his focus is somewhat different. Basically, he starts talking about one thing, then in the same breath, he starts talking about other things, tries to conflate things, then weakly denies doing so, before doing it again. He is a very slippery person.
If you don't want a surveillance camera inside your toilet, that means you hate children.
Looks like Australia is shelving breaking E2EE for now.
I wasn't even going to comment on it but someone seemed so confident in these dodgy numbers, seeing something that isn't even really there. Anyway, if you're ever unfortunate enough to encounter these arguments, then you know their flaws, I guess.
"Have you ever committed a crime?" (Probably with some dodgy definition) type questions are not useful to determine if someone is *currently* committing a crime.
Plus, other inherent weaknesses you get with looking for simple correlations.
Also, again, it's a "mystery sample". We have no clue where it comes from. Also, involves a bad faith actor who is known to use loaded language and to twist terms.
Software Engineer. Psy / Tech / Sex Science Enthusiast. Controversial?
Free Expression. Human rights / Civil Liberties. Anime. Liberal.
Joined May 2023
